It will be well appreciated by users of any new type of equipment that it can take some considerable time before they become proficient in using that equipment. The equipment will invariably provide significantly greater functionality to enhance the user's experience of using the equipment than is necessary to allow the equipment to be used in its most basic form or using its most basic functional features. For example, modern mobile telephones can be used for conventional person-to-person conversations using a voice channel. Mobile telephones also provide, for example, various functions such as electronic telephone books in which telephone numbers of friends, family and work colleagues can be stored. Not only can the telephone book store given telephone numbers, the names and, possibly, addresses of the persons to whom any given numbers correspond can also be stored. The alphanumeric characters representing the names and addresses are entered using the very limited number of dialling keys that are provided by mobile telephones. Accordingly, entering the details of any one person can be a relatively complex task. The mobile telephone will also have a number of menus that can be traversed using the various keys provided by the mobile telephone keypad. Each of these menus usually has a sub-menu from which the mobile telephone user can select various functions or operations to be performed.
Furthermore, with the advent of WAP phones, mobile telephone users have been able to access the Internet to locate and download information in a manner that is similar to the use of Internet Explorer in traversing the Internet from a computer. Again, there is a significant degree of functionality associated with the use of such WAP phones.
An instruction manual is usually provided with each of these devices. The instruction manual, while being comprehensive, is inconvenient in that the user cannot be expected to carry the instruction manual with them wherever they take their mobile telephone. Still further, having read the instruction manual, the user will invariably forget how to use various features of the mobile telephone. This applies in particular to features that are used irregularly.
Therefore, in the absence of the instruction manual, the user is left with relatively few options for obtaining assistance on how they may access the various features of their telephone.
It is an object of embodiments of the present invention to mitigate some of the problems of the prior art.